Grade 3: Pollution Matters
Unit Description
Students will use theatre, music, movement, and the visual arts to observe, obtain, evaluate and communicate the effects of pollution on the environment. This unit uses The Lorax by Dr. Seuss to bring to life the causes and effects of various types of pollution on the environment and their ecosystems. Students will also strengthen their persuasive and descriptive writing skills throughout the projects in this “Pollution Matters” unit.
Unit Essential Question
How can we obtain, evaluate and communicate the effects of pollution on the environment?
Real World Context
We study the effects of pollution on the environment because it is in the world around us and affects our lives on a daily basis. Understanding the impact of pollution on our environment will help us make better decisions about our everyday choices as producers and consumers.
Cross-Cutting Interdisciplinary Concepts
Cause/Effect
Compare/Contrast
Projects
Project 1: Ego vs Eco
In this project, students will learn about air, water and land pollutants from around the world. Students will express how they feel emotionally about pollution through movement. They will respond to images addressing pollution using dance. The culminating activity for students is creating an environmental awareness brochure that synthesizes all of their knowledge around pollution.
Project 2: Good Garbage
In this project, students will examine the effects of pollution on the ecosystem in a musical way! This project includes students creating new lyrics to a song about pollution. Students step into role as lyricists and use music to help humans understand the causes and effects of pollution around them.
Project 3: The Lorax
In this project, students will listen to the story The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Students will discuss the art elements they see in the text. They will sketch and use oil pastels to recreate their own scene analysis of the illustrations before and after the Onceler. Students will also relate to the changes of mood throughout the story. Students will then create a persuasive writing piece comparing and contrasting the Lorax’s habitat.
Project Essential Questions
PROJECT 1:
- How does pollution affect people from different cultures in different ways?
PROJECT 2:
- How can I use music to evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution on people and the environment?
PROJECT 3:
- How can art be used to compare and contrast the land of the Lorax before and after the Onceler? How do you analyze the mood in a piece of artwork using key vocabulary?
Standards
Curriculum Standards
S3L2. Obtain, evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution (air, land, and water) and humans on the environment.
ELAGSE3W1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.
- Introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure that lists reasons. b. Provide reasons that support the opinion.
- Use linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons.
- Provide a concluding statement or section
ELAGSE3RI3: Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
ELAGSE3RI6: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text
ELAGSE3RL5: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.
Arts Standards
VA3AR.1: Discuss his or her artwork and the artwork of others.
VASAR.2: Uses a variety of approaches to understand and critique works of art.
D3CR.1: Demonstrates an understanding of creative and choreographic principles. processes and structures.
- Responds through movement to a variety of stimuli (eg. Literature, visual art, props)
D3CR.2: Demonstrates an understanding of dance as a way to communicate meaning.
- Uses a combination of improvisations and choreographic tools to create movement based on one’s own ideas, feelings, concepts and kinetics awareness
M3GM.1: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
M3GM.5: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
- Create rhythmic motives and enhance literature.
- Compose simple melodic patterns.
- Arrange rhythmic patterns creating simple forms and instrumentation.
TAES3.2: Developing scripts through improvisation and other theatrical methods
- Uses the playwriting process: pre-write/pre-play; prepare to write/plan dramatization; write; dramatize; reflect and edit; re-write/play; publish/perform
- Collaborates to generate story ideas
- Describes the elements of script writing; plot, setting, point of view, sequence of events, and cause and effect
TAES3.4: Designing and executing artistic and technical elements of theatre
- Uses technical theatre elements to design costumes, props, sets, sound and lighting
- Incorporates technical theatre elements such as costumes, props, sets, sound, lighting, into dramatizations
VA3PR.1 Creates artworks based on personal experience and selected themes.
- Creates artworks to express individual ideas, thoughts, and feelings from memory, imagination, and observation.
- Creates artworks emphasizing one or more elements of art (e.g., color, line, shape,form, texture).
- Creates art emphasizing one or more principles of design (balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, unity, contrast).
- Combines materials in new and inventive ways to make a finished work of art.
VA3PR.2 Understands and applies media, techniques, and processes of two-dimensional art processes (drawing, painting, printmaking, mixed-media) using tools and materials in a safe and appropriate manner to develop skills.
- Creates drawings with a variety of media (e.g., pencils, crayons, pastel).
- Draws lines with varied weights and in varied ways.
- Uses directional lines (vertical, horizontal, diagonal).
- Creates landscape with foreground, middle ground, background.
- Achieves distance through diminishing sizes and placement of objects higher on the page
VA3AR.1 Discusses his or her artwork and the artwork of others.
- Describes how size, colors, lines, shapes, and textures are organized in artwork to create a focus or center of interest (emphasis).
- Demonstrates a respect for art forms and art objects.
- Uses art terminology with emphasis on the elements of art: line, shape, form, color, space, texture.
- Uses art terminology with emphasis on the principles of design. (e.g., balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, unity, contrast).
- Recognizes that lines can be used to suggest movement, feelings, sounds, and ideas.
- Points to descriptive, directional, and expressive lines in artworks.
- Explains how texture (implied and actual) is used in two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional forms.
- Identifies intermediate and complementary colors, tints, and shades of colors.
- Recognizes value as the lightness and darkness of a color.
- Distinguishes between 2-D shapes and 3-D forms.
- Recognizes the division of picture plane into foreground, middle ground, and background.
- Describes how negative and positive space is related.
- Recognizes and compares symmetrical and asymmetrical balance in artworks.
Materials to be Purchased for this Unit
- Science Weekly Newspapers
- Post It brand chart paper
- Clear Garbage bags
- Black Ultra Fine Sharpies
- Soft Chalk Pastels
- Patel Card Paper
- Light Filters or Color Transparencies
- Flash Light
- Spray Fixatives
Character Education
Components
Students can also create and share brochures with other students, school visitors, and/or grade levels to encourage environmental awareness. Students will collaborate with peers to create a variety of projects that educate others on the awareness of pollution and what they can do to limit the amount of garbage and pollution in the ecosystems around the world.
Character Attributes Addressed During Unit
- Empathy
- Learning with others
- Environmental awareness
- Respect
Summative Assessments
- Pre/ Post Test
Partnering With Fine Arts Teachers
Music Teacher:
- Can provide assistance to students with creating song documenting awareness of pollution
- Help students select music to use with song lyric creation
- Review Quaver program to assist students with composing music
Visual Arts/Drama Teacher:
- Assist students with the process of text rendering when creating visual representations of art using the garbage collected
- Discuss with students the elements of art (tone, mood, warm/cool colors) when analyzing a piece of art
Physical Education Teacher:
- Teach students empathy by sharing a variety of movements that express a variety of emotions
Appendix (See Additional Resources)
- Pre/ Post Test
Credits
Grade 3: Pollution Matters
Additional Resources
Websites
Suggested Books
- The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Additional Videos
Scientific Sketching